The knowledge that the personalities of the two sexes are socially produced is congenial to every programme that looks forward to a planned order of society. It is a two-edged sword that can be used to hew a more flexible, more varied society than the human race has ever built, or merely to cut a narrow path down which one sex or both sexes will be forced to march, regimented, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2016/04/22/analects-of-the-core-mead-on-the-sexes/feed/0The Problem of Inequality: Outsource the CEOhttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/08/14/the-problem-of-inequality-outsource-the-ceo/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/08/14/the-problem-of-inequality-outsource-the-ceo/#respondWed, 14 Aug 2013 21:30:58 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=2669Relating to CC204’s study of the problem of inequality is an excellent article in Slate discussing the unclear ways a CEO’s ‘worth’ is measured. Here is an extract:

It’s not exactly news that CEOs of big companies get paid a lot of money. And everyone knows that the pay gap between the big executives and the average Joe has been growing. The surprise revealed in a great new database of executive compensation—compiled by Equilar on behalf of the New York Times and covering U.S. firms with more than $1 billion in revenue—is the striking lack of method to the madness: America’s CEOs are paid a lot largely because other American CEOs are also paid a lot.
…
This reflects the fact that nobody really knows how to judge a CEO’s worth. Since the executive is hired by a board of directors that’s theoretically accountable to a company’s shareholders, it seems like CEO pay should have something to do with stock price. But nobody wants a CEO to focus exclusively on short-term stock issues and ignore the firm’s long-term strategic position. And even if you do focus on share prices, what’s the relevant issue? Absolute return? Returns relative to the market as a whole? Returns relative to the sector? Tim Cook’s compensation at Apple was recently restructured to emphasize Apple’s share price relative to the S&P 500, which in some ways hitches him less to how well Apple fares against its competition than to how investors view the technology sector as a whole. There’s enough ambiguity that you could argue a given case in many different ways.
…

Relating to last week’s lecture by Professor Mears on gender inequality and Hochschild’s readings, are two articles discussing the claim made by the Esquire‘s editor, that “women are there to be beautiful objects”. Some extracts:

“The women we feature in the magazine are ornamental,” he said, speaking at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London on Tuesday. “I could lie to you if you want and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified.”

Sadly, however, having admitted to perpetuating sexism, Bilmes then tried to rationalize it with two of the most illogical sexist excuses in circulation: That’s just how men are and women do it, too! He trotted out the latter when he accused women’s magazines of also objectifying women, as if the practice becomes less, not more, objectionable for being ubiquituous.

This directly relates to and integrates themes addressed in both CC202 and CC204. In last week’s CC204 lecture, Professor Mears highlighted some important changes in gender inequality in our society. Here is a sample:

Women’s labor force participation rate peaked at 60% in 1999, following several decades in which women were increasingly entering the labor market.

The share of mothers who are breadwinners or co-breadwinners has risen from 27.7% in 1967 to 63.3% in 2008.

Men have increased their participation in housework from 15% to 30% since 1965.

The mentality in the fashion world is strongly affected by gender. If you are a male model, “Just walk like a man, just walk like yourself. For guys it’s very different than girls. Girls have to learn to walk. Guys just walk with confidence,” says male model Parker, 24 , NYC.

For men looking for prospective wives, traits like mutual attraction, education, intelligence and good looks have risen in importance between 1939 and 2008, while traits like dependable character, neatness, housekeeping and chastity have declined in importance during the same period.

The Core encourages students to dig further into this broad and controversial topic- it certainly deserves our attention.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/03/23/gender-inequality-cc204-the-claims-of-esquires-editor/feed/1CC204: Living Wage Calculatorhttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/02/19/cc204-living-wage-calculator/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/02/19/cc204-living-wage-calculator/#respondTue, 19 Feb 2013 16:11:50 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=2148This spring, the class of CC204 has been looking at inequality in terms of race, gender, social class and financial standing.

“Poverty in America” has provided a very useful tool to investigate inequality in terms wages across the United States, the Living Wage Calculator: http://bit.ly/Ykr2NZ

Simply enter your home town and find out how much money you need to be making to be “living well” there!

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/02/19/cc204-living-wage-calculator/feed/0April 13: Hochschild lecture at BUhttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/20/april-13-hochschild-lecture-at-bu/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/20/april-13-hochschild-lecture-at-bu/#respondTue, 20 Mar 2012 15:20:50 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=1639A lecture happening here at BU next month may of particular interest to students in CC204, who in the course of their study of the problem of inequality have been reading The Second Shift. The author of that book, Arlie Russell Hochschild (University of California, Berkeley), will be on campus on Friday, April 13, 2012, to deliver the 4th Annual Albert Morris Lecture in Sociology. The title of her talk is “The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times”.

Professor Arlie Hochschild has been at the forefront of research on contemporary work and family life for over thirty years, pioneering the use of gender as a category of analysis and turning sociological attention to emotion. The Second Shift and The Time Bind probed the complicated intersections of work and family life, and her co-edited book, The Global Woman (with Barbara Ehrenreich) brought attention to the global commodification of carework. She is both a renowned scholar and a very public advocate for women and families.

This free and public event will take place at 5pm in the 9th floor colloquium room, Photonics Center, 8 St. Mary’s St., Boston University. A reception will follow. For more information, contact stown@bu.edu.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/20/april-13-hochschild-lecture-at-bu/feed/0Introducing: The Second Shifthttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/14/introducing-the-second-shift/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/14/introducing-the-second-shift/#respondWed, 14 Mar 2012 14:36:00 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=1626CC 204 students will be happy to see a new addition to this year’s Core Curriculum in the form of a new text. The Second Shift, a short treatise on the evolution of women in the workforce and its anthropological significance in modern society. Author Arlie Hochschild discusses how even though women have steadily integrated into the workforce, they still retain all their responsibilities in the household, effectively adding a “second shift” to their work day. This extra work culminates in an entire month of extra work, making it seem that women work thirteen months out of the available twelve.

In her book, Worsley gives her reader an in-depth look into one of the strongest indicators of social progress: our domestic habits. Our mirrors, our baths, even our toilets are all indicators of how society was structured and how it was progressing, or regressing. It makes for an enjoyable read, with a humorous yet educational style regarding the details of public defecation and waste management.

For those wondering what bathroom humor has to do with learning about our society, just try to consider the fact that bowel movements weren’t always a private matter, and some would even relieve themselves in front of guests at a meal. It says a lot for our social mentality when one act can be seen in two extremes in relatively close history.

If this has piqued your academic curiosity, you can find a more in-depth review of the book here.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2012/03/14/introducing-the-second-shift/feed/0Analects of the Core: Bourdieu on successful ideologieshttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2011/03/07/analects-of-the-core-95/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2011/03/07/analects-of-the-core-95/#respondMon, 07 Mar 2011 18:08:34 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=875The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need for words, and ask no more than complicit silence.

The 1940 Census had revealed that some 10 million Americans had not been schooled past the fourth grade, and that one in eight could not read or write. This, primarily, was a southern problem. A higher proportion of blacks living in the North had completed grade school than whites in the South.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2011/02/25/analects-of-the-core-89/feed/0Because it is Wronghttp://blogs.bu.edu/core/2011/02/25/because-it-is-wrong/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2011/02/25/because-it-is-wrong/#respondFri, 25 Feb 2011 19:30:50 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=799Frequent Core lecturer and former Core seminar leader Gregory Fried has co-authored a new book, Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror , in collaboration with his father, Charles Fried. Harper’s magazine recently posed 6 questions to them, probing into the reasons behind the points made in the book:

4. You argue against “Machiavellian heroes” while recognizing that Machiavelli’s arguments carry much weight. Instead you ask us to look at Nelson Mandela as another sort of hero. What guidance does Mandela give us in forging a new moral consensus about torture?

Gregory Fried: Mandela’s example serves as a model, not for the question of torture specifically, but rather for what constitutes genuine statecraft. When he came to power in South Africa in 1994 after the fall of apartheid, Mandela understood that however important good laws and a new constitution may be, they are meaningless if the people do not share a sense of common commitment to the core principles of the nation. That is why Mandela insisted that not just the former ruling National Party but also his own African National Congress must admit its violations of human rights in the truth and reconciliation process. That is why he took so seriously the whole country uniting behind the national rugby team, the Springboks, as a symbol of racial unity and equality (as portrayed in the wonderful film Invictus).

The rule of law, which is so crucial to free republics, cannot be upheld by law itself; it requires the united commitment of the people to democratic principles such as human dignity. When leaders embrace techniques such as torture for short-term gain, they forget a key lesson of statecraft, which is that radical departures from foundational principles, no matter how useful they might appear at the moment, can result in lasting changes to the living character of a people and its government.

Is it ever right for a democracy to torture? Read Professor Fried’s book to see his answer, but feel free to leave your opinion below or as part of a discussion at the EnCore Facebook page.

Domestic service reveals the contradiction in a a feminism that pushed for women’s involvement outside the home, yet failed to make men take responsibility for household labor. Employed middle- and upper-middle class women escaped the double day syndrome by hiring poor women of color to perform housework and child care, and this was characterized as progress. Some feminists defined domestic service as progressive because traditional women’s work moved into the labor market and became paid work. However, this definition neglects the inescapable fact that when women hire other women at low wages to do housework, both employees and employers remain women. As employers, women continued to accept responsibility for housework even if they supervised domestics who performed the actual labor. If we accept domestic service as central to women’s oppression, the contradiction, as Linda Martin and Kerry Segrave have pointed out, is that “every time the housewife or working woman buys freedom for herself with a domestic, that very same freedom is denied to the domestic, for the maid must go home and do her own housework.

– from page 128 of Maid in the U.S.A. by Mary Romero. This study of the circumstances of domestic employees in the United States is being read this semester in CC204, as part of a unit on gender inequality.